Top Chef Chicago - April 9th

Okay, so I am a couple days in getting this up, sue me! I'm sorry, but it's tax deadlines and I am tired!

So this week starts with the Palate challenge, you know the one they are blindfolded and have to taste test things and identify something. Great! They only told us who was the lowest and who had the top three scores, I really wanted to know everyone's numbers!!
Antonia won, getting 12 of the 15 tastes correct, not bad. Ryan and Jen tied with 11 or the 15 correct. You may be saying Ryan? Jen? Yeah, that is what I thought. Ryan is the forgetable guy that was paired with Mark last week and Jen is the mohawked girl in the relationship. yeah, I know they are both forgetable. i really wanted to know where Spike landed in those numbers....hum, I'm thinking maybe 7 or 8, maybe a 9. Then there is Zoi, and I am thinking she probably didn't do too good, 7.

Another team challenge. okay, enough already, I want to see them cook and fall flat on their faces themselves, no more team challenges, please!! So we have four teams, Earth, Water, Air and Fire.....let's see what they can do.

Fire:
This team is Dale, Lisa and Stephanie. Okay, Stephanie deserves a gold medal for dealing with Lisa, and I personally though Dale did a good job of not going off on Lisa, until the last two minutes of the show, but still. They fought tooth and nail on the menu, a first course for 80 people on a $500 budget. The finally decided that Stephanie would do a chile rubbed shrimp, dale a chile salad and Lisa bacon.
Let me move on as say that this team rocked it. The food was good, loved by all and they ended up your winners. Now, of course only one can win the prize and Ming, the guest judge decides to award it to Lisa for the bacon, becuase it was something he had never seen? Excuse me? Come to my house, I have been cooking bacon in the oven, weighted to lie flat for years!! Okay, so I don't add the miso, but still, something new? Do you not get out much Ming? What's the deal?

Air:
Well this team is forgetable. Ryan and Jen and whats-her-face, the one that does pasta all the time. Yep, they do duck, and it ends up being decent. It's not the top and not the bottom. It was funny, there were four teams, and this was the first time they only called one team in the top and then two in the bottom, so this team was just there. They weren't good enough for the top, not bad enough for the bottom, which is about all I can say for the people or the meal, I remember the duck and that is about it.

Water:
Richard, Mark and Andrew. Boil-in-the-bag salmon was their main dish. Fish swim in the water, cooked in water, was Richard's reasoning, and I am thinking, ugh. I am not a big fan of the bag cooking thing he did, I was thinking is would make it have the texture of mashed potatoes. I have never really liked the boil-in-the-bag meals anyway. And then Tom said it was mushy. Andrew went back a round and made the fake cavier again, okay, it might get a good review one time, but leave it alone, it can be over done if you do it over and over again. Really. Poor Mark, I think he was completely out of his element with Richard and Andrew, they are not his style of cooks, and I just don't think he had any idea what they food was going to be and what to do with them.
So they end up in the bottom two, and worse than the food.....scales! Yep, Richard either didn't clean the fish, or didn't clean the fish very well. Ming got a mouthful of scales! UGH! Bad, bad team!

Earth:
Antonia, who has immunity, Zoi and Spike, can you say conflict? Spike wants to make soup and Antonia and Zoi don't think that is a good first course? Excuse me? wasn't soup the traditional first course in history? How can you not want to do soup or not think it was a good first course choice? So they go with something more "earthy", mushrooms and beef....whatever.
Can we say bottom two!! This time is was about flavor, no seasoning, which is one reason I am thinking that Zoi did not do well on the palatte challenge, she claims that she is a heavy-handed seasoner, and Gail admitted that the Rosemary was overpowering, but that it was a bd choice to go with the mushrooms, as is you just shouldn't put the two together, but then what did we expect from Zoi....when the chocolate and wasbi won last week she promised us that is doesn't taste good, and since she knows what does and doesn't taste good better than the judges, why does it surprise me about her mixing mushrooms and rosemary, even I don't think that sounds good.

At round table, they decide since the dinners voted Earth the lowest that they are the bottom, and one of them will go, and since Antonia has immunity it is down to Spike and Zoi. Tom says I would like to send them both home and I about wet my pants, thinking please, please, please send them both home! But alas, my dream was not to be and only Zoi went home.

Okay, I am not sorry that she went home. She was in the bottom last week and really seemed to have no clue as to why and so she is defensive and mean when she gets up the next morning, and I am thinking did you even listen to what they are trying to tell you? Two weeks in a row in the bottom, and I am thinking that she was in the bottom in the first week or so too...so really, no surprise.

Spike, you can just go on home next week, although Lisa is going to give you a run for your money on that one. I can't stand her at this point anymore. She was running around the kitchen complain, slamming things, cursing and whatnot, and I am like, see ya! People were complaining about Dale, but I think she is worse. I haven't seen that much from Dale that bothers me yet, yea he thinks he is good, but you know what, so far he has been able to back up hie thinking that with his food, so I have no problem with him, unlike Lisa who is all talk and Spike who is even more talk.

So....what did you think? Did the right person go home?